I’ve got DragonQuest in 1st and 2nd editions (SPI: 1980, 1981) in the shop at the moment; great time for some photos.
Legacy game companies in the early 80s were trying to “catch the wave” of D&D popularity with their own FRPG releases.
See Avalon Hill’s Fantasy Role Playing Game:
I’m no expert on DQ, so I’ll point you a couple of blogs for a better idea of gameplay.
“DragonQuest used percentile dice for all its mechanics. Character creation was a mix of random generation and player choice, since the game lacked classes and used skills instead. Races were mostly standard fantasy one — human, dwarf, elf, halfling, etc. — with orcs and lycanthropes for variety. Characters could begin play under the influence of certain stars or planets, granting special bonuses or penalties, an idea I’d previously seen in Chivalry & Sorcery. Combat was astoundingly complex and pretty much demanded the use of miniatures, since it used a hex grid and facing was very important.” –Grognardia: Dragonquest Retrospective
“Certainly, something was possessing SPI around the turn of the 80’s. They had a boardgame about the demons from the Lesser Key of Solomon, and worked some of those names into their Citadel of Blood adventure game. And yes, there’s a whole school of DQ demon summoning that ramps up to 16 pages of fully powered Goetic infernal royalty.” –Roles, Rules, & Rolls: The Awesome Pain in the Ass That Was DragonQuest
Dragonquest, 1st edition (1980)
Dragonquest RPG items for sale in the shop
For the full DragonQuest product list, please visit my RPG reference site.






Dragonquest, 2nd edition (1981)




1st and 2nd edition Combat chapters


For the full DragonQuest product list, please visit my RPG reference site.
Dragonquest RPG items for sale in the shop
See also: DragonQuest Fan Page by Snafaru – Lots of resources, including the “lost” Fourth DQ Book: Arcane Wisdom.
John Carter: Warlord of Mars adventure game (SPI, 1979)
Sauron Exclusive Rules: From the Games of Middle Earth (SPI, 1977)